LET US PRAY TO GOD THAT POPE LEO XIV WILL HAVE THE COMMON SENSE LITURGICAL SENSIBILITIES OF POPE BENEDICT XVI AND NOT THE PURITANICAL VIEWS OF BLASE CARDINAL CUPICH—PLEASE GOD! PLEASE GOD! OH! PLEASE GOD!

 

This is an Artificial Intelligence overview of Pope Benedict XVI’s  Post-Vatican II liturgical genius!

AI Overview

Pope Benedict XVI saw the modern mass (the Novus Ordo) as a continuation of the Church's liturgical tradition, not a rupture, but he was critical of how it was sometimes implemented, particularly when it devolved into what he saw as a show or was performed with a "liturgical arbitrariness". He sought to preserve the beauty of the older Mass in order to foster liturgical unity and spiritual growth, asserting that "there is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal" and what was once sacred remains sacred.  

Views on the modern Mass (Novus Ordo)

• As a continuation: 

  He viewed the revised Mass as a renewed form of the same missal that has developed throughout the Church's history. 
• Critical of some implementations: 

  He lamented that the "concrete realization" of the liturgical reform had, in some cases, degenerated into a "show" or a source of sadness, and was often influenced by arbitrary choices by parishes or priests. 
• A need for spiritual impulse: 

  He believed a new spiritual impulse was needed to restore the liturgy as a communal activity and remove it from the "arbitrariness of parish priests and their liturgy committees". 
• In favor of its potential: 

  He was receptive to the Novus Ordo when celebrated with respect and solemnity, and believed it enriched the treasury of prayers and prefaces. 

Views on the traditional Mass

• No opposition to tradition: 

  He did not see the modern Mass as being in opposition to the older form, stating, "what earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful". 
• A call for greater accessibility: 

  He allowed for the wider use of the 1962 Missal through the 2007 document Summorum Pontificum to bridge the gap between different liturgical outlooks, arguing against a "total exclusion of the new rite" and for the "total exclusion of the old rite". 
• Critique of past handling: 

  He was critical of the earlier suppression of the traditional liturgy, calling it a "despising and proscribing the Church's whole past".